Chris Eubank Jr finally settled the first chapter of boxing’s longest-running family rivalry, outpointing Conor Benn in front of 65,000 fans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to win a fight that had been three years in the making.
All three judges scored it 116-112 for Eubank Jr across twelve rounds at a catchweight above middleweight, handing Benn the first defeat of his career. The pair traded fully in the pocket for long stretches, refusing to take a backward step in a fight that Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn later called one of the most dramatic he had ever promoted.
Three years of postponement, then a genuine slugfest
Photo: IMAGO
The occasion carried weight well beyond the two men in the ring. Their fathers, Chris Eubank Sr and Nigel Benn, fought twice in the 1990s in two of British boxing’s most storied nights, and both were present ringside, embracing before the opening bell. The sons’ version of the rivalry had originally been scheduled for 2022 before Benn twice tested positive for trace amounts of the fertility drug clomifene, a saga that dragged on for two years before his suspension was eventually lifted.
Once it finally happened, the fight delivered. Eubank Jr’s work down the stretch, particularly through rounds nine to twelve, appeared to separate the two on the cards, though it was close enough that Benn left the ring believing he’d done enough.
Contrasting reactions from the ring
“I knew I was capable of that, and I just needed someone to bring that out of me,” Eubank Jr said afterwards. “The fact our fathers did it before brings out the soul in you.”
Benn, for his part, wasn’t ready to accept the verdict. “It was close. I need to watch it back. I thought I won,” he said, adding that he still believed he could “go back down a weight and win a title” regardless of the result.
A rematch already being written
Hearn wasted little time framing this as the opening instalment rather than the conclusion, with a contractual rematch clause already in place before the first fight even happened. Given the size of the occasion and how close it was on paper, a second meeting looks less like a possibility and more like an inevitability, continuing a rivalry that now spans two generations of British boxing.
